ABSTRACT
In the dramatic climax to the 2008 film Gran Torino, Walt Kowalski, a grumpy old Korean War veteran, stands on a dark street, staring at a duplex. A group of young Hmong men are visible in the upper windows. They are talking, swearing, and laughing loudly. Walt continues to stare until a couple of the young men come out. “Any swamp rats in there?” he sneers. One man opens his mouth to reply but Walt cuts him off: “Shut up, gook. I’ve got nothing to say to you, shrimp-dick. Midget like you.” Another man points a pistol at Walt, who continues: “Ya, ya, watch out for your boyfriend. Cuz it was either he or you or someone who raped someone in their own family. Your own blood, for Christ’s sake! Go ahead, pull those pistols, like miniature cowboys, go ahead.” Walt reaches into his pocket and slowly pulls out a cigarette. “Gotta light?” he asks, then answers softly, “No.” He raises his hand: “Me, I’ve gotta light.” He slowly reaches into his jacket, as he whispers to himself, “Hail Mary, full of grace.” Six Hmong “gangbangers” machine gun him down. Walt falls to the ground in cruciform position. The camera zooms in on his hand, which slowly falls open to reveal his Zippo lighter, and the blood slowly trickling out of the palm of his hand, like Christ’s stigmata. With this act of sacrifice – undertaken to save the life and protect the future of
his teenage Hmong neighbor, Tau –Walt joins other Eastwood characters, such as the Man-with-No-Name in A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and the equally anonymous preacher in Pale Rider (1995) as well as countless other cinematic Christ-figures. Among them are Andy Dufresne (Shawshank Redemption, 1994), Carl Childers (Sling Blade, 1996), the Extra-Terrestrial (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1982), Maggie Fitzgerald (Million Dollar Baby, 2004), Rocky Balboa (Rocky, 1976), Superman (e.g., Superman Returns, 2006), and Spider-man (e.g., Spider-man, 2002). Christ-figures have long been popular in fictional feature films. As Lloyd
Baugh has pointed out,
From early in the development of cinema, filmmakers have told stories in which the central figures are foils for Jesus and in which the plot is parallel to the story of the life, death and, sometimes, the Resurrection of Jesus, stories in which the “presence” of Jesus is sensed and discerned in the person and struggle of the protagonist.1
